Uplifting

Your career — and your life — should be spent doing things you truly, deeply, and passionately value. If you’re not giving your time to those things you really believe in, then you are wasting it!

Here’s what management guru Peter Drucker has to say on the matter:

“    Organizations, like people, have values. To be effective in an organization, a person’s values must be compatible with the organization’s values. They do not need to be the same, but they must be close enough to coexist. Otherwise, the person will not only be frustrated but also will not produce results.

A person’s strengths and the way that person performs rarely conflict; the two are complementary. But there is sometimes a conflict between a person’s values and his or her strengths. What one does well — even very well and successfully – may not fit with one’s value system. In that case, the work may not appear to be worth devoting one’s life to (or even a substantial portion thereof.)

If I may, allow me to interject a personal note. Many years ago, I too had to decide between my values and what I was doing successfully. I was doing very well as ayoung investment banker in London in the mid-1930’s, and the work clearly fit my strengths. Yet I did not see myself making a contribution as an asset manager. People, I realized, were what I valued, and I saw no point in being the richest man in the cemetery. I had no money and no other job prospects. Despite the continuing Depression, I quit — and it was the right thing to do. Values, in other words, are and should be the ultimate test. 

Most people, especially highly-gifted people, do not really know where they belong until they are well past their mid-twenties. By that time, however, they should know the answers to the three questions: What are my strengths? How do I perform? and, WHat are my values? And then they can and should decide where they belong.

Or rather, they should be able to decide where they do not belong. The person who has learned that he or she does not perform well in a big organization should have learned to say not o a position in one. The person who has learned that he or she is not a decision maker should have learned to say no to a decision-making assignment.

Equally important, knowing the answer to these questions enables a person to say to an opportunity, an offer, or an assignment, “Yes, I will do that. But this is the way I should be doing it. This is the way it should be structured. This is the way the relationships should be. These are the kind of results you should expect form me, and in this time frame, because this is who I am.”

    Successful careers are not planned.  They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person — hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre — into an outstanding performer. “

– Peter Drucker, “Managing Yourself”, HBR